


Your Guide to the Windy City

by celli



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Community: sn_playbook, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-01
Updated: 2007-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Bears, the Bean, bad weather, and being alone in public.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Guide to the Windy City

**Author's Note:**

> For the Roadtrip Challenge. Thanks to [](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/profile)[**barely_bean**](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/) for the beta. Further notes at the end.

They're in a cab on their way to Soldier Field--the same feature everyone other sportscaster is covering, the miracle of the Bears in their first Superbowl since the Shuffle--the first time they see it.

"Dan," Casey says in a choked voice.

Dan's been flipping idly through his notes and bumping his knee against Casey's where the cabdriver can't see it. He looks up and over, and his jaw drops, too. "What the--"

"I have no idea."

The cab driver--overly friendly and underly concerned with traffic rules, like every cabbie in this city--looks in his rearview mirror and sees them staring. "Oh, the Bean!" he says. "You want to stop and take a picture?"

"I--no, no, that's okay, keep going." Casey leans over to Dan. "Did he just call it--"

"Maybe we misunderstood. Or maybe he misunderstood."

"Or maybe there's a three-story silver statue called the Bean at--" Casey leans toward the window. "--At Michigan and Madison in downtown Chicago."

"Not even Chicago," Dan says.

***

They brave the worst cold spell of the year to check it out after they file their story. "God, this is stupid," Casey says as they fight the wind up the steps to the statue. "We couldn't have stayed in the room and Googled it?" And done other things involving much less clothing, he thinks.

"Oh, I called Kim while we were waiting to interview Grossman and asked her to look it up for me," Dan says. "I just want to see it."

"Are you _kidding me_?" Casey asks. The wind blows his scarf in his mouth; he spits it out and glares at an unrepentant Dan. "You know what it is and we're still here? It's five degrees out, Danny. And they don't call it the Windy City for nothing."

"Knowing's not the same as seeing," Dan says, reaching out to grab Casey's scarf as it starts flipping around again. "And it's not called the Windy City for the wind."

Casey starts to say something--he's not sure what, but it will completely flatten Dan as soon as he figures it out--but Dan wraps the scarf around his fist and tows him up to the plaza facing the statue. It's huge, twice as long as it is high, and it really does resemble nothing so much as a giant kidney bean. It's the most bizarre thing Casey's ever seen outside Jeremy's new "Weird Sport of the Week" feature.

"Huh," he says, staring up at it. "So this is the Bean."

"Its real name is Cloud Gate," the walking guidebook next to him points out, "but nobody--including the sculptor--calls it that."

"Makes sense." There's a ring of lights visible on it, and as he looks harder Casey can see they're the reflections of the skyscrapers all around them. It would be pretty if he weren't in danger of frostbite. Okay, it's pretty anyway. "Can we go now?"

Dan tugs on the scarf. "Almost."

They end up underneath the curve of the bean, looking up into a polished, curved surface that spins their reflections around and around on every side.

"Oh," Casey says. The reflections at the bottom, closest to them, are only slightly distorted, but when he looks all the way up, there's a tiny Dan and Casey staring back down at him, bulky in their overcoats, still joined by a red glove and a white scarf. "Oh, _Dan,_ " he says, and it bounces off the metal around them and back to his ears.

Dan looks over at him, his eyes just as wide as Casey's, and then he stops and looks behind them.

"What?" Casey pulls away from Dan and looks, too.

"Nothing. Nobody. There's nobody else out here."

"Well, of course not," Casey says, "it's Antarctica here, who would be?" But he's started to inch closer. Dan has, too.

"You know," Dan says conversationally, "I could have a Chicago renaissance. Right here, right now." And he tugs on the scarf until Casey is close enough to kiss.

Casey closes a hand over Dan's on his scarf. If he tilts their heads to the side and opens his eyes just a little, he can see a dozen Dans kissing a dozen Caseys, windblown and cold and leaning into each other.

They finally have to stop, because it really is too cold for them to be out there. They're both grinning like crazy, though. "Hey, Dan," Casey says.

"Yes, Casey?"

"Why _is_ it called the Windy City, then?"

Dan laughs. "Let's go back to the room and Google it."

"I support that idea," Casey said, and lets Dan pull him back out into the lights of Chicago.

**Author's Note:**

> [The Bean](http://www.millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/cloud_gate.html)   
> [The Bean at night](http://artificialmemory.com/portfolio/photo/the-bean/)   
> [The answer to Casey's question](http://www.chipublib.org/008subject/005genref/faqwindy.html)


End file.
